Lee Brice's 'I Drive Your Truck' lyrics are intense enough to make even a grown man cry. But the emotional ballad only becomes more of a tear-jerker when you learn that it was inspired by a real-life situation.

Songwriter Connie Harrington first thought of penning a song called 'I Drive Your Truck' when she saw an interview with a family who had lost their son in combat. During the interview, the late soldier's father was asked how he could possibly cope with his son's death -- he responded that he drives his son's truck to help deal with his pain and sadness.

That sparked an idea in the back of Harrington's mind, so she turned to fellow songwriter Jessi Alexander to start working up ideas for the 'I Drive Your Truck' lyrics. Then, they contacted Jimmy Yeary to see if he wanted to participate in the process, too.

"I was instantly in," Yeary told Roughstock. "We got together a few days later, and Connie had a couple of things written down," he added. "She had something to do with change in the ashtray and something to do with the dogtags hanging from the mirror. We had a few of those, and then we started messing with the melody. We were just off and running."

After a while, penning lyrics for the emotional ballad started to get to Harrington. She kept breaking down in tears, so her fellow songwriters used her as a litmus test for whether certain lyrics would fit into the song well or not.

"Me and Jessi kind of joked that any line we threw out, if it didn't tear her up, it must not be right!" Yeary explained.

"Eighty-Nine Cents in the ash tray / Half empty bottle of Gatorade rolling in the floorboard / That dirty Braves cap on the dash / Dog tags hangin’ from the rear view / Old Skoal can, and cowboy boots and a Go Army Shirt folded in the back / This thing burns gas like crazy, but that’s alright / People got their ways of coping / Oh, and I’ve got mine," are some of the details that Harrington and her co-writers came up with to describe the fallen soldier's truck.

Harrington isn't the only one who gets teary-eyed from the 'I Drive Your Truck' lyrics. Brice has revealed that he has a hard time playing the hit single every night.

“The first time I heard it, I broke down," he told radio station WYRK. "Every night now, it’s almost even worse, because I’m looking out and all the people know it, and the dynamic of the show changes when I start playing that song."

“Their faces change,” he added. “When I’m singing it, I can see the stories run through their minds. It’s something to behold.”

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